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Take a chance

"Europeans don't 'date'. Europeans are laser focused. They lock eyes at you across the cafe, their pupils swallowing you whole as if you were an ice cream cone. They decide, in that instant, to take a leap of faith and bring you down the rabbit's hole with them. There is no guessing. Just warmth. With one person. Right away. For a day. For a month. Or for eternity."

- Heidi Isern

Heidi writes this when comparing European men with Americans. And this is what she says about the Americans:

"When I ask this question in America, the men hem and haw. They ask me to define exactly what I MEAN by the word 'love'. After we create an over-thought five paragraph definition (notarized by lawyers), they *might* deem ONE person in their lives that fits the bill. How did love become transformed into such a grandiose, unattainable concept? It should be easy, no?"

I tend to turn things into grandiose, unattainable concepts most of the time. List out the pros and cons. Look at the decision from various angles and perspectives. Evaluate how different scenarios might play out once the decision is made. And a handful of times, I take a chance. And jump right in.

Just like the movie, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, failed to take a stand on which way is the better way, I'm not able to either. I have had positive and negative outcomes both while taking a measured approach and while jumping in on impulse.

And today, when I was about to make another decision on the impulsive side, my friend asked me to hold the thought for a while.

The difference between the two is simply a choice of lifestyle. But, taking a measured approach makes things less enjoyable in the larger scheme of things. You are prepared for the worst scenario and you have already dreamt of the best scenario, so there is little room for a surprise. And an adrenalin rush. Which is how most people like it. And hence, we seek out adrenalin rush inducing activities like skydiving or bungee jumping from time to time. We can't handle it for longer than those few minutes.

But, following the impulse hasn't always been about adrenalin rush. In fact, the consequences have often been as mundane as those post a measured decision. But I have never looked back on the impulsive decisions. And I've always been a hundred percent behind them, despite the outcome. Which is probably why I've made so few of them. There is no room for 'What if's and regrets when you go down the impulsive route. You are in love with it for a day, for a month, or for eternity. You stick with it or you move on to something else. It is living in the binary. Either something does it for you or it doesn't. But a measured decision can be broken down into parts and you can try to change and tweak the little things that don't seem to be working for you. This is what is called making it work. And this is where I hem and haw. Because I want to be certain that we want to make it work.

I think I should take a chance and jump a little more often.

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1 comments:

You can take that leap of faith depending upon how consequential that event is. Trivial events are no-brainers but the most important ones (impact spreads out for an extended period of time) require your complete attention and vigilance.